The Family Greene by Ann Rinaldi Read Free Book Online Page B

words—"don't breathe a word of it to anyone until it is made public, but my husband wrote that the head of the whole army is going to be Mr. George Washington from Virginia."
    I gasped. "A Virginian? The Continental Congress would never pick a Virginian! Nobody will ever listen to him!"
    "What better way to bring this country together?" she asked. "That's what my husband says. Now why don't you and I go inside and have some cake and tea. There are so many things we both need to catch up on."
    There are some times in the life of a woman that only another woman can put reasoning and understanding on a certain situation in her life.
    We had tea and cakes. Neither one of us would have ventured in alone. It wouldn't have looked right. Ladies did not take tea alone.
    We asked after family at first, of course. We boasted about our husbands, since neither of us had become acquainted, up until then, with the maiming and death this war would bring. Until then it was all military training and practice, music and color.
    Finally she said, "Your spirit has been brought low, Caty Greene. Is this because you are carrying? Or because of the gloomy people you are made to associate with? You were always so lively in your aunt's house, so witty and bright. Do you miss Nathanael so?"
    "It's all the pieces of a quilt," I said.
    She took a deep breath. "Then I think I have a solution for you."
    "Short of throwing myself in the Pawtuxet River?" I teased.
    "Don't even speak such. Just listen." And she leaned back in her chair and looked at me. "James says that many officers' wives are talking of joining their husbands at headquarters."
    What was she saying? That I, wife of a brigadier general, should not stay confined in a house and allow myself to be tortured and brought low in spirit by my sister-in-law when I could go and join my husband at his headquarters near Cambridge?
    My heart beat faster. I could be with Nathanael!
    "They say that even Mrs. Washington is planning on coming to camp.
    "Won't Nathanael object?"
    "I'd like to see one man object to having his wife join him. Especially one as pretty as you!"
    I blushed, then nodded. "I'll write to Nathanael," I said. "I'll give him some warning, anyway."
    I hugged her and thanked her, then, after parting, I told my driver to hurry home. And as we did so that warm July day, I planned, with all the spite in me, how I would act with Peggy, and how I would take no more of her terrible treatment. I was, after all, the wife of a brigadier general, was I not? And I would be treated accordingly from here on in. And it would commence with not having possum stew for supper.
    I got home to find the post had come and there was a letter from Nathanael, telling me how much he loved me and missed me and wished he could see me. He had moved his headquarters to Prospect Hill, two miles from Cambridge. He wrote that George Washington had been appointed commander in chief of the whole army by the Continental Congress.
    I've met him. He's a fine fellow. The kind you want on your side,
he wrote.
We can't but be the victors with him in charge...
    I wrote back, telling him how I met Charlotte Varnum, how she'd told me that many wives were talking about traveling to Cambridge to be with their husbands. Did he not want me to come?
    He wrote back. He said a lot of things—news, gossip, how he could see the enemy's garrisons from where he was. But he never said no, I should not come.
    I seized on that. I betook myself to Providence another day. I bought a whole new wardrobe and a trunkful of baby clothes, and when the driver, whose name was Sergeant David Shaw and who was one of Nathanael's Kentish Guards on leave, dropped me off, I bade him pick me up at the house at six the next morning.
    "For Providence again, Mrs. Greene?" he asked.
    "No, for Cambridge," I answered.
    "But that's fifty-two miles, ma'am, a two-day drive. We'll have to make an overnight stop. Change the horses."
    "Aren't you up to the task,